Guwahati, May 2: The All Assam Students' Union today demanded a high-level inquiry into the alleged harassment of a few examinees, including female candidates, who had appeared for the All India Pre-Medical Test held here yesterday.
The demand was made following TV footage that showed CBSE officials and police personnel asking a few candidates to remove shirts, shoes and earrings for not adhering to the dos and don'ts (see chart) issued by the Central Board of Secondary Education, which conducts the test.
The test was held in 26 centres across Guwahati.
A group of aggrieved parents today informed The Telegraph that a few CBSE officials and police personnel did not allow a section of examinees, who went to appear for the test at Hindustani Kendriya Vidyalaya at Rajgarh and National Public School at Lokhra, to enter the examination halls, for allegedly not adhering to certain guidelines meant to prevent cheating in the test.
According to sources, examinees who opposed the dress code were manhandled by police personnel. While a few male examinees were forced to remove their full-sleeved shirts, female ones were asked to remove their earrings.
AASU general secretary Lurin Jyoti Gogoi told this correspondent that such behaviour was unacceptable.
He said whatever be the reasons behind the CBSE guidelines, it was completely uncivilised to ask examinees to take off their shirts, shoes and earrings to appear for the medical entrance test.
Television footage of the incident showed one examinee who was late for the test and tried to push his way into the hall being thrown to the ground by security personnel. Visuals also showed a policeman removing the jewellery, possibly earrings, of a candidate. The face of the girl, however, cannot be seen in the visual.
"Students who faced such harassment will not come out before the media directly, fearing that they might be targeted by the authorities concerned and eventually lose the medical seats for which they worked so hard. But AASU will not keep mum and will demand a high-level probe into yesterday's incident to punish the guilty officials," the general secretary said.
"Officials associated with exam duties and police personnel were very rude and it was quite unexpected for the examinees to face such a situation. Many examinees were mentally disturbed, lost concentration and finally could not do well in the test as expected," an examinee, said. He said the notification on dress code for the test was issued just a few days earlier on the CBSE website and many examinees were unaware of it.
Sources said the CBSE issued a notification on April 26 mentioning the dos and don'ts for examinees.
"The notification was not highly publicised by the CBSE and thus most of the examinees were in dark about the development," a source said.
The examinee said the dos and don'ts were mentioned in admit cards issued to the examinees.
Another examinee said the CBSE had issued the guidelines keeping in the mind the prevailing hot and humid weather condition in Delhi, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
"In Assam, Meghalaya and most other northeastern states, the weather is very cool. Wearing half-sleeves is not possible for many examinees," the student added.
The minimum temperature in Guwahati was 19.7 degrees Celsius yesterday, while that of Shillong was 11.9 degrees Celsius, Imphal was 17.5 degrees Celsius, Itanagar 20.8 degrees Celsius, Aizawl 12.3 degrees Celsius and Agartala 27.7 degrees Celsius. The Northeast has been experiencing incessant rain and thundershowers for over a fortnight.
The regional officer of CBSE, Guwahati, Sanjib Das, expressed ignorance about any harassment meted out to the candidates and said the AIPMT cell of the CBSE based in Delhi was exclusively responsible for conducting the test.
